AN ADMIRABLE all-round performance by David Millns, who made the highest individual score of the match, a career-best 64, and then took 6 for 84, spearheaded a comprehensive Leicestershire win yesterday which suggested they are capable of sustaining their interest in the Championship to the end.

Millns bowled fast and straight and with no little hostility on a dry, dusting and variable pitch. Worcestershire's target of 289, the biggest total of the match, was probably 40 or 50 more than they thought was realistic in these conditions, especially as their opening batsman, Phil Weston, was absent with a broken bone in his hand.

However, they contributed lavishly to their own downfall. On Saturday, when Leicestershire were only 130 ahead with seven second-innings wickets down, they dropped Gordon Parsons twice.

Parsons also had an excellent match. He is playing the most positive and intelligent cricket of his life. His eighth- wicket partnership with Millns amounted to 103, also the highest of the match, and it was like gold dust on this pitch.

One might have thought that this, plus the fact that the ball had turned considerably since the third day, might have meant Graeme Hick would have had a part to play. However, he bowled only four overs at the start of the day and afterwards Millns and Parsons were able to bat with a certain amount of panache.

By the time Parsons was caught in the deep, Worcestershire looked pretty fed up. Certainly the rub of the green had not gone their way. However, given one of Tim Curtis's anchor-man performances and something more flamboyant from Hick and Tom Moody, they could have run Leicestershire close. Millns, though, was full of it and tearing in down the slope he gave them no chance.